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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s city unit, with some of its central leaders and all its candidates for the legislative assembly polls here, met on Sunday evening for a review.
They took stock of the performance, with each candidate giving an assessment of the voter turnout on their seat, their prospects and the reasons. The analysis gave the party enough confidence to believe it might fare better than in the 2013 assembly polls, despite most exit polls on Saturday predicting a win for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
In 2013, the BJP, with ally Shiromani Akali Dal, had won 32 seats of the 70 at stake. Party sources said the alliance might win 34 this time.
However, there were also those who thought the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) strategy to ensure better voter turnout backfired, with a sizable section among the middle class having voted AAP on Saturday. With the expected decimation of the Congress likely to hurt the BJP further.
Amit Shah, the party’s national president, also met Delhi leaders on Sunday evening. Separately, Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman met BJP chief ministerial nominee Kiran Bedi for an hour.
Win or lose, what seems certain are large changes in the Delhi BJP. Party insiders say the poll campaign was messy and the need for Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to bring Bedi as the CM candidate was because of the problems in the Delhi unit.
Several city seniors leaders didn't appreciate this “interference” by the central leadership, and particularly how outsiders like two-time Congress MP Krishna Tirath and others were given party tickets. The ‘Modi PM, Bedi CM’ strategy didn't help either, as the party returned to its tried and tested 'Walk with Modi' campaign. As the poll day approached, full-page advertisements and hoardings on Delhi's roads featured Modi, not Bedi.
A defeat in Delhi, if it happens, will be the first electoral loss for party chief Shah, after a series of poll triumphs. Shah is said to have never lost an election for the party, right from his management of students and civic body elections in Gujarat in the 1990s.
A loss could also impact the Union Budget-making exercise. It could make the Modi government put a bit more effort to send a ‘pro-poor’ message. A party leader from Bihar said an effective election campaign in the run-up to assembly elections there, scheduled for later this year, will need a Budget oriented more towards the concerns of the underprivileged.
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi met Modi and later told journalists he expected support from all parties, including the BJP and Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, in the no-confidence motion he faces.
Meanwhile, AAP leaders and candidates, including chief ministerial candidate Arvind Kejriwal, headed to watch a movie on Sunday afternoon.
